


Smile (this is what it's like to die)

by Saral_Hylor



Series: 25 Seconds 'verse [5]
Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers (Comic), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Bonus Material, M/M, Mortality Challenged Losers, Pre-Slash, Prompt Fic, Reference to character death, bed sharing, it's okay they got better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 15:02:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2114379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saral_Hylor/pseuds/Saral_Hylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Prompt from quandong_crumble: Cougar/Jensen, and unsettled Cougar tries to crawl into Jensen's single bed with him. They don't exactly both fit.  </i>
</p>
<p>Jensen woke up when he should have stayed dead, now he can't sleep. </p>
<p>He's not the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smile (this is what it's like to die)

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this fill, and somehow it's slotted itself in the **25 Seconds'verse**. Takes place the night after the events of Chapter 2: Mysteries of the Unexplained of **(Devil Doesn’t Want Us and) Heaven’s Bouncers Won’t Let Us In**. AKA - after the first time JJ dies.

There was a complaint on the tip of his tongue, a very near whine about being woken up, but he knew Cougar would call him out on the lie straight away. They both knew neither of them had a hope in hell of sleeping. 

It didn't mean he hadn't been trying though, counting electric sheep and all that jazz. Even if he couldn't close his eyes without the cold and pain he'd woken up to creeping in, sharp in his memory. The unsettling feeling that he shouldn't have woken up, not in the back of the van, not without his glasses and a pounding headache and everyone looking at him absolute horror. 

Cougar's bed creaked again, and he wanted to tell him to stop wriggling, snipers were supposed to be good at staying still. Except maybe not when they'd seen team mates come back to life after getting a bullet through their head. 

There was the faint rustle of fabric, then the almost inaudible pad of feet cross the cement floor. In the dark, without his glasses, he couldn't see jack shit, but then, he didn't need to be able to see to know that Cougar was standing next to his bed. It wasn't a surprise when he felt cool fingertips press into the skin beneath his jaw searching for a pulse. A pulse that he wished would calm the fuck down, because it was getting kind of ridiculous how much a simple touch from Cougar would make his heart do stupid things inside his chest. He was a trained solider after all, not some teenage girl. 

But someone had forgotten to give his heart that memo. 

Even after it had stopped then started again a few hours later. 

His mouth itched with the need to say something, anything, he could feel the nervous babble starting to creep up his throat, but before he could get his tongue to form anything, even less than coherent nonsense, Cougar reached out and tugged back the edge of his blanket. 

The bed wasn't big enough. It was the only real thought going through his head when Cougar pushed his way into the bed, knees and elbows digging into places that really didn't appreciate it in the slightest. The last time this had happened had been before, back in Bolivia. 

They'd had bigger beds then.

Cougar finally settled, pressed uncomfortably rigid against his side, probably barely balanced on the edge of the mattress. 

He wanted to say something. Something about cats, or bats, or zombies, but that hit a little too close to home. And there wasn't a chance, because of course Cougar knew when he was about to lodge his foot firmly in his mouth, and stopped him with a hand pressed firmly over his lips. 

He sighed, a harsh exhale out if his nose, since there was still a hand covering his mouth, and almost blocking his nose, before doing a fair amount of wriggling of his own. There were more elbows and knees knocking into other body parts, fingers accidentally jammed into his throat at one point, but somehow they ended up in a remotely more comfortable position, Cougar's back pressed against his chest, one arm wrapped around the sniper and the other stuffed under his pillow. It was achingly familiar, too close to the nights full of wanting, of needing the contact to remind themselves that they hadn't died in a helicopter crash, that they were alive when all those children were dead. But it was different. Cougar didn't smell like tequila and sex and second hand perfume. He smelt like gunpowder and sweat and leather and _Cougar_. 

It was impossible not to press his face a little closer to the back of Cougar's head, ignoring the hair that got stuck to his lips and tickled his nose. And at least he could blame the size of the bed for the fact that he was holding Cougar closer and tighter than he remembered doing those nights in Bolivia that seemed an entire lifetime ago. 

He guessed, in a way, it was. 


End file.
